Slashdot Mirror
Swiss War Game Envisages Invasion By Bankrupt French
An anonymous reader writes "The Telegraph reports, 'Hordes of bankrupt French invade Switzerland to get their hands on their "stolen" money — such is the imaginary scenario cooked up by the Swiss military in simulations revealed over the weekend. Carried out in August, the apparently outlandish army exercise was based on the premise of an attack by a financially stricken France split into warring regions, according to Matin Dimanche, the Lausanne-based daily. ... Operation "Duplex-Barbara" went as far as imagining a three-pronged invasion from points near Neufchâtel, Lausanne and Geneva, according to a map published in the Swiss newspaper. Behind the dastardly raid was a paramilitary organization dubbed BLD, the Dijon Free Brigade bent on grabbing back "money that Switzerland had stolen from Saônia". "For its credibility, the Swiss army must work (to ward against) threats of the 21st century," Antoine Vielliard, Hauate-Savoie councilor, told Matin Dimanche. However, Daniel Berger, captain of the Swiss armored brigade, sought to play down the specificity of the threat. "The exercise has strictly nothing to do with France, which we appreciate" he told the Swiss press. ... "French towns were cited to provide soldiers with a real scale," he said. ... Neutral Switzerland has not been invaded since the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century. '"
Famous but probably-apocryphal conversation between a visiting German general and his Swiss counterpart, prior to WW2:
German: How many men are under your command?
Swiss: I can mobilize one million men in less than twenty-four hours.
German: What would happen if I marched five million men through that pass tomorrow?
Swiss: I would call up my men. Each man would fire five shots. Then I would send them home.
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
True, but Switzerland takes it up a level. Permanent tank traps in farmers fields, hidden military installations all over the country, bomb shelters, and a huge military reserve with regular training.
And for some of them, an almost fanatical dedication to the pope.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Oh my gawd, I didn't expect that!
Terrorists are such a vanishingly irrelevant problem that it's not on the scale of things we even need to protect ourselves against. We need to protect against vending-machine related accidents before we need to deal with terrorism. Or wide-spread robbery of public funds by the financial sector.